


a truce not to be born

by Artemis1000



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, F/F, Ferelden (Dragon Age), Grief/Mourning, Marriage of Convenience, Married Life, Political Alliances, Royalty, Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Their wedding had been a political convenience, the Hero of Ferelden's fame to strengthen Anora's tenuous reign and a crown to reconcile the Couslands with Mac Tir rule. Married life, though, that proved all kinds of inconvenient.Somebody should have warned Elissa Cousland that ending the Blight would be the easy part.





	a truce not to be born

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keita52](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keita52/gifts).



“Warden blue suits your father.”

Anora halts in the process of standing up from the council table, her cool eyes wary but not hostile as they meet her queen consort’s. “Do you miss it?”

It is Elissa’s turn to grow wary, spine stiffening, chin lifting a little at the perceived slight before Elissa catches herself and realizes Anora has no way of knowing there is a slight to be had.

Nobody knows the truth about her conscription, that it had been the price she paid to buy safe passage for a mother who then refused to leave her dying father’s side. Nobody can ever know that the famed Hero of Ferelden had never wanted to be a hero, that given the choice, she would in a thousand lifetimes always have chosen a Cousland’s vengeance over a Warden’s heroics. When everything else has been taken from them, the people need heroes to believe in. Elissa, mere Elissa Cousland, has no right to tarnish the hero they have chosen, even if she happens to be a woman by the same name.

So no, this is not a slight, at least not beyond the way in which everything Anora says might be intended as a slight.

“No,” she says simply, and watches disappointment flicker over Anora’s face.

Elissa stands up and leaves first, not wishing to spend a moment longer with Anora and her father-in-law, who has her family’s blood on his hands as much as Howe did. She isn’t fool enough to think Anora is disappointed because Elissa won’t let her in.

What a pair they make.

It gets easier, Mother had said. A girl of your standing doesn’t marry for love but love will grow out of duty. And if you can’t love your spouse, you will at least love your children.

The queen will never give her children, of course. No tiny faces and tiny hands with Mother’s twinkle in Loghain Mac Tir’s calculating eyes.

Most of the time, Elissa is glad for it. The less that binds her to Anora, the better. Anora had found Elissa’s last name and Warden status convenient, with her own claim to the throne so tenuous and her father a traitor, but there is no saying how long this convenience will last.

There will be no tiny heads full of silky blonde hair to bury her face in to hide her tears, no new family to fill the hole in her heart left by the one she has lost.

Most of the time, Elissa tells herself she is glad for it.

When she first met Anora, Elissa had been but a girl, starstruck into silence until Anora had left without ever taking notice of her.

 _She is the smartest and most beautiful girl in the world_ , she had told her father after one such meeting which had her do nothing but stammer, blush and make a fool of herself, _I don’t care that she’s promised to Prince Cailan, I will win her heart and marry her!_ He had laughed for teenage Elissa had all kinds of grandiose dreams but he had also said, _maybe; if she likes you better once you are old enough to wed._

Anora wouldn’t reach marrying age long before her so to Elissa, it had been as good as a yes. After all, she planned to become a far greater warrior than Cailan and then Anora would be guaranteed to like her better. It wasn’t until she was older that she understood it had been her father’s way of softening the blow. The only child and heir to the Hero of River Dane was meant for someone greater than a teyrn’s second-born daughter.

By the time Anora married Cailan a couple of years later, Elissa was a warrior in her own right and her dreams of battlefield heroics left no room for dreams of girls with star-kissed hair and beautiful eyes wise beyond her years.

“Wife. I have need of you.”

Elissa halts, turns. Anora stands straight-backed and proud as if she were holding court though they are alone in this corridor of the royal palace, not even a guard in sight. She is regal in that specific way which Elissa has learned means she is irritated. “Is the Orlesian ambassador giving us trouble?”

Anora approaches her with dainty, measured steps. There is nothing dainty about her cool scrutiny. “No. That is, yes, but nothing I can’t handle. You are free to leave for the coast.”

Elissa nods. Her inspection of their ports and navy will be the first time she leaves Denerim for any noteworthy span of time. “Good. I still say I should be in the Frostbacks, ensuring that Orlais doesn’t make use of our weakened state, but this will do for now.”

Anora’s brows furrow in royal displeasure. “We have debated it before, to exhaustion.”

Elissa matches her frown and crosses her arms over her massive plate armor. She still wears the same dragonbone armor she had fought the archdemon in and considering it was good enough for an Old God, even the courtiers find it hard to protest. “I know.”

She heaves a short, impatient sigh as if dealing with Elissa is just all-around a terrible burden. “Your own Wardens are sending dire warnings of a darkspawn resurgence in Amaranthine,” she says, voice clipped. “I need you at my side in Denerim if it gets worse, not getting yourself killed by Orlesians all the way in the Frostback Mountains.”

These are, Elissa realizes, the warmest words her wife has spoken to her since the Blight began. Her lips twist into something that is almost a wry smile, just a little sadder. She always gets wistful when she thinks about what she had once wished for, and what she has instead. “Careful there, Anora. One could think you care.”

Anora’s eyes narrow, her lips thinning to a line. “I care – about Ferelden. And right now, you don’t have in mind what is best for Ferelden.”

A snort escapes Elissa before she can stop herself and then there are words trying to tumble out, bitter, angry words she has been holding back ever since she talked to Anora before the Landsmeet. She holds them back – for the most part.

“You would know. Screwing over Ferelden is the specialty of your family, isn’t it?” she sneers.

Anora is always pale but she pales further right there in front of Elissa’s eyes. Her hands tremble, her nostrils are flaring. “Never mind. Safe travels, wife.”

They had wed in war-torn Denerim; a joyous celebration amidst ashes that would go into Ferelden’s history books. Ferelden’s latest hero would marry the daughter of their greatest. On that day, nobody had wanted to remember that Loghain’s betrayal was the reason Anora had been free to wed again. It was a day for pride.

Mabaris had howled and warriors had banged their swords against their shields until the walls of Denerim shook.

Anora’s dress had been fine but simple, Elissa wore the armor in which she had slain the archdemon. All their respective fineries had been ripped or torn or burned by Howe or Darkspawn hands, and there were greater needs. Fereldan splendor was its own and scorned Orlesian fripperies; the lavish wedding dresses the Empress had gifted them were scorned, forgotten.

Anora had been just as beautiful as Elissa had imagined her, all these years ago.

Elissa had knelt before the Grand Cleric, accepting the queen consort’s crown that Anora had once worn herself and sworn fealty to her queen, her wife.

To live and die in service to her queen and country. One had been the easiest, the other the hardest vow she ever made.

Elissa would be only half ashamed to admit she is stretching a three-day trip to last a week.

It’s not that she is avoiding Anora, it’s just…

Well. Yes. She is avoiding Anora. Dreading their reunion, more like it.

The first time she sees her after returning to Denerim, it is unsurprisingly in yet another council meeting.

They work well together, they always have. It’s the one redeeming feature to their impersonally cordial sham of a marriage, they have always understood another perfectly when it comes to matters of the state.

Anora sits at one end of the table and Elissa takes the seat at the other end, both of them presiding from high-backed chairs over their advisors, giving another openings and strengthening the other’s arguments without any need to even discuss what stances they will argue. They are of one mind when it comes to the future they want for Ferelden; a glance has always been enough to feel at ease. Like so often, Elissa thrills in the energy that fills the council chamber.

They are good together, so incredibly good. Anora smiles when Elissa artfully shoots down a protest about Anora’s plans to give the lands around Ostagar to the Dalish and she feels something in her belly flutter and twist with this yearning that keeps growing every time she is overcome by this sense of rightness.

Elissa is still smiling when Anora dismisses the council.

She stands up to approach Anora, her fingers twisting. “I like how you defended our plans for Ostagar.” Her grin widens, turning mischievous. “That was very clever, I don’t think Arl Heartless is going to recover from your rebuke anytime soon.”

Anora pauses in the process of gathering up a stack of scrolls and parchments. “I wish you would stop antagonizing him with that awful nickname. You’re making it worse.” Despite her words, she doesn’t sound disapproving, at least not for Anora’s standards. This is her friendly voice, Elissa has been learning.

Elissa tries to catch her gaze, yet despite her thawed voice, Anora steadfastly avoids her eyes. She swallows hard. She won’t be discouraged, she tells herself. She won’t. Anora doesn’t hold a grudge for how they had parted and that’s a blessing, wishing for more would be greedy. She shrugs. “Just saying it as it is.”

Anora’s beautiful mouth, this mouth Elissa has fantasized about so often, thins into a very familiar line of displeasure. “That’s your problem,” she informs, her voice crisp and curt and not even upset. Upset would be easier to deal with than her cold, dismissive scorn. “You don’t think before you speak.”

All Elissa can do is watch as Anora walks away, as usual – and as usual, she mourns the things that could almost be.

On their wedding day, Anora had been beautiful - even more so than when a far younger Elissa first dreamed of marrying her.

They had shared a single, chaste kiss for the crowds and never another.

They never share a bed, not even to maintain pretenses. Anora bid Elissa goodnight and left the wedding feast alone. Elissa had left far later and for her own chambers. Sometimes she wants to ask if they shouldn’t at least pretend but Anora is so cold and coldly cordial that the question keeps dying on Elissa’s lips, unvoiced.

Elissa keeps to her dreams. Nobody, not even Anora, can keep her from dreaming.

“Her Majesty voiced her relief that you made it back safely,” Wynne, their court mage, tells Elissa while they are going over Denerim’s magical defenses.

She frowns. “I was never in danger,” she says, brusque, already knowing she will regret it as soon as her flare of anger fades. Elissa has always thought it cowardly to vent on others when you are angry with yourself, yet it’s something she has caught herself doing often lately.

“That’s not solely what she was concerned with,” Wynne informs her, looking both amused and exasperated as only she can do so skillfully.

Elissa sets her jaw and reminds herself of all the reasons she shouldn’t let herself care what Anora said or did or thought. That way lies nothing but disappointment. “Whatever.”

Wynne drops the topic, thankfully, but now that it is on Elissa’s mind it is impossible to undo the damage. For the rest of the day, she keeps wondering if Anora has truly missed her, enough even to say so to others. The queen isn’t one to talk about feelings if she can help it, as far as Elissa has seen she would rather pretend she doesn’t have any at all.

When they share a private dinner for once, just the two of them, she watches Anora like a hawk. Anora is as professional as ever and nothing else.

Elissa spends the rest of the evening telling herself she isn’t disappointed.

“You? Marry the Queen?” Fergus had laughed. “Anora-the-Queen the Queen?!”

Elissa had flushed that unflattering, splotchy pink that always overtakes her face when she is fighting helpless rage. She had sputtered insults and even half-heartedly tried to punch him.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re great!” Fergus had defended himself once he grew bored of Elissa telling him he was a nug-faced Orlesian turncoat. “It’s just… You are you and she is she.”

Later, when they had sobered up from their playfight, when they had hugged goodbye, he had whispered, “You will always be my baby sister, Elissa. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Maybe he had been right.

There are many anniversaries to commemorate and celebrate Ferelden’s restored unity.

The death – the _murder_ – of Elissa’s family has its anniversary first.

“You’re not coming!”

Elissa and Anora are standing face to face like they are braced for a duel of swords instead of words, having their argument right there in the middle of a crowded hallway.

This whole showing unity thing is off to a brilliant start.

Anora stands, unflinching. “The people must see Anora Mac Tir, daughter to Loghain Mac Tir, make the trip to Highever,” she states as if she were reciting the bailiff’s list of household expenses. It’s what she does best, pretending that none of what causes pain to others even concerns her.

Elissa grits her teeth and balls her hands into fists, though it does little keep them from shaking. “Don’t,” she snarls between clenched teeth as she steps in close to Anora, crowding her with a warrior’s superior height and superior bulk and the sheer force of anger and grief never released, “you,” a finger thrust forward, stabbing Anora in the chest, “you don’t get to make a spectacle of my family’s mourning!”

Anora grabs her wrist and forces it down. “And you don’t get to decide what I do and where I go!” she hisses back. Her pale cheeks are flushed red. “If I want to go with my wife when she’s mourning her family, I very well will!”

“Fuck you will do!” Elissa barks as she rips her wrist away. There are tears burning in her eyes, angry and hurt and so long overdue that she half expects to break down bawling right here in front of servants, courtiers and worst of all, Anora.

There’s no way Anora is coming.

“You’re not my family!” She wipes roughly at her eyes. “You’re just the daughter of the man who got them killed!”

Anora rears back as if she had been slapped. She turns first pale, then pink, her pretty kissable mouth ends up pinched with barely restrained anger. “Well,” she says, voice wavering, Elissa has to admire her a little bit for how good she is at faking poise even now, “I’m glad we cleared that up.” She lifts her chin. “It’s always good to know where you stand with the people who claim to be on your side.”

It feels like these days every interaction of theirs ends with one of them walking away in anger or hurt. This time, it’s Anora’s turn.

Elissa remains behind, discomfited with this new discovery that she has the power to hurt her wife.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter that she can actually pierce Anora’s frozen walls enough to wound her.

In the end, once she is back in Highever, she can see nothing but her own hurt.

Anora is at her side, still taciturn and strangely hesitant, but she is there when even Fergus can’t be, shadowing her as faithfully as only Elissa’s mabari ever does.

“I don’t want to be here,” she confesses quietly. They are walking the narrow cobblestone streets of Highever late at night, Anora at her side and their faithful mabaris shadowing them in the place of human guards. She pulls her shawl tighter around her though she isn’t even cold, or at least not chilled by the breeze.

The streets are lit by torches. The light flickers, it makes shadows dance on the walls, leaves some corners and back alleys in utter darkness. Every step she takes feels like stepping back into that terrible night she sought to forget. As they walk, it’s all Elissa can do not to cling to her sword and brace herself to be attacked by Howe men all over again.

A door bangs and she flinches, hand going for her sword before she can stop herself. She curses under her breath and quickly drops her hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice hushed. “I’m not this jumpy, normally. It’s just…” She looks around. “These are the streets I grew up in,” she explains, bitter now, “I ought to feel safe here. Fergus and I chased another with toy swords down these streets until Mother forgot that she was a lady now and cursed us out like the warrior she had been first. I have so many memories but…”

“But it doesn’t feel safe anymore,” Anora echoes, just as quiet and hushed and for once, not sounding cold at all, just mournful, “And now you can only see these streets littered with corpses.”

Elissa halts under a torch. Anora’s pale face and blonde hair look warmed in its orange light. “I know it’s over but being here… My body keeps telling me I have to fight for my life all over again.” She swallows hard. Bear whuffs comfortingly and presses his cold, wet nose to the back of her bare knee, making her regret momentarily that she has foregone full chainmail for plain leathers tonight. She reaches down to run her fingertips over the mabari’s stout, wedge-shaped head while her eyes find Anora’s, then quickly drop to look at her chin instead. “That I have to fight to protect you.”

She would. It doesn’t hit her until the words are leaving her mouth but they feel true as she speaks them, true and certain. Anora is the Queen of Ferelden, it’s a matter of course she would give her life for her monarch but Anora is also her wife. A wife who holds no love for her, for sure, but in the Chantry of Denerim that still bore scorch marks and the lingering stench of darkspawn, she had vowed that she would love and honor her and lay down her life for her, not because Anora was her queen but because she vowed to do the same for Elissa.

By the time she yanks herself out of her own thoughts, Anora is frowning at her in slight concern mixed in with suspicion and something Elissa doesn’t know to name. It looks like affection, except she knows for a fact Anora holds no affection for her. “Would you?” she asks, her voice still so soft.

She nods jerkily and stares at the scuffed tips of her boots.

“Thank you,” Anora says. It may have been a dismissal coming from anyone else, or even from her on a normal day, but this time there can be no denying the affection in her voice.

When she lays in her old bed in her old room with the queen just across the hallway in Fergus’s old room, Elissa pictures herself being far braver than she is in reality. This braver, bolder Elissa leans forward and kisses Anora, and she must have many other better qualities going for her as well, for the Anora in her fantasy kisses her back.

It didn’t stay at imagining kisses.

It takes Elissa half of breakfast until she can meet the queen’s eyes.

It’s not that she hasn’t fantasized about Anora many times before but never before had her dreams skirted so close to reality. Never before has she wanted to make them come real as much as she does while a completely unaffected Anora is slathering raspberry jam onto a slice of bread.

It’s absolutely infuriating, really, and twice as mortifying.

As far as memorial events go, it’s a beautiful one. Elissa should know, she has become something of an expert on them ever since the end of the Blight.

It’s beautiful, it’s tasteful and it’s everything her proud parents wouldn’t have wanted.

“They would want to be remembered for their deeds in life, not for how they died,” she tells Anora when they have finally escaped the ravenous flock of very sympathetic nobles. Fergus is still in there somewhere talking to his bannermen.

“That’s how it often goes,” Anora says, sounding understanding despite her curt words. She looks very regal standing in the Couslands’ pantry in some of her best fineries and somehow still looks regal when she perches on a barrel of salted herring bearing the crest of Amaranthine.

She hadn’t protested when Elissa fled first into the kitchen, then into the pantry; the threat of having to interact with peasants on their own turf a time-honored deterrent to keep away their fellow nobles.

“You look nice in blue.”

Anora looks at her, brows furrowed and blue eyes slightly narrowed in confusion mixed with confusion – something Elissa can’t blame her for, it, really did come out of nowhere, so she just ducks her head. “I mean. Your dress. It matches your eyes. But… Never mind.” She brushes a scattering of flour off her armor, briefly wondering when exactly she had gotten herself dusted. Mother would be unsurprised, she’d always looked a mess when she was done making mischief in the kitchens. “It was just a thought.”

Just a thought but a true one.

Anora looks every part the queen in her fine pale-blue dress, even if Elissa’s eyes keep straying to the scattering of embroidered dark-blue flowers emphasizing the curve of her breasts. Because she’s only intrigued by the embroidery, of course. Naturally. Anything more than that must be reserved for dreams and lewd late-night fantasies, it has no place when Anora is right in front of her and looking at her with such piercing eyes, it feels as if she can look right into her head.

“Thank you,” Anora finally says. At least she looks just as awkward as Elissa feels, cold comfort that it is.

She turns away, flustered and flushed and quite mortified for both. She shouldn’t be thinking about Anora at all, least of all now right after the memorial. “Forgive me,” she says, her voice tight. Her nails dig into her palms. “I shouldn’t have dragged you away. I should…” She waves a hand in the vague direction of the Great Hall and the gathering of nobles. “I should go back. We should.”

There’s a moment of contemplative silence. “If that’s what you want,” Anora says, her voice refreshingly matter-of-factly after the mess of emotions that is pulling Elissa ever deeper into its thrall. Anora’s voice feels like a breath of fresh air or something she can cling to, maybe. “But if you don’t, staying here is perfectly acceptable.”

“It’s not; it’s cowardice.” Elissa perches on the barrel right next to Anora’s. “But I’ll take your word for it.”

They sit in silence; Anora motionless and studying Elissa, while Elissa fusses with yet more flour stains on her armor.

“Sounds like quite the hubbub in the kitchens,” Elissa ventures once the silence becomes too heavy to bear. She’s never handled silence well, anyway.

“It’s the biggest gathering of nobles Highever has seen since…” Anora cuts herself off, face tightening into a mask. To hide a wince, Elissa presumes. People always wince or cringe when they realize they nearly brought up the taboo of the murdered Couslands. The last time so many nobles had gathered in Highever had been for Fergus’s wedding.

“I hate it when people do that.” Her voice is quiet, even within the silence of their hiding place. Elissa swallows hard when she feels Anora’s scrutiny intensify. She had never looked away, just relaxed her vigilance. “Trailing off, that is. As if I don’t know what they were going to say. I don’t need coddling, I know my own past. _I’ve lived it._ That people avoid speaking of it feels worse.”

Anora nods. “People do it with mentioning Cailan, too. As if I don’t know that I came to rule in my own name because he died.” She lets a heartbeat pass and her chin lifts up. “As if I need to be _coddled_.”

She spits the word with such scorn that Elissa can’t help the smile that fights its way onto her face. She smiles, then chuckles awkwardly under Anora’s sharpening glare. “Sorry, it’s just…” She’s smiling again. Or still. “That was a very you thing to say,” she finishes, weakly. The crinkle of Anora’s nose confirms just how weak that had been and yet it only makes her smile wider.

Maybe it’s the stress of this week getting to her, maybe it’s the absurdity of the queens of Ferelden hiding from their own court in a pantry but at the end of this truly terrible day, Elissa feels laughter bubbling up in her.

“Thank you,” she says when her laughter has ceased. It had been neither long nor hearty but she still feels lighter for it, and more herself.

“Maybe I should thank you, Cousland.” Anora isn’t smiling, yet Elissa can spy a telltale crinkle at the corner of her eyes. “It’s surprisingly not terrible, hiding with you.”

It really isn’t – and suddenly, Elissa recalls when Anora had thanked her, and the mad urge she had felt then to kiss her. She had resisted it, it had been the wrong time, wrong place and was likely to earn her a stinging rebuff.

These had been good reasons not to kiss her and they haven’t changed.

Except Anora is here with her in a pantry instead of holding court. She has been with her every step of the way since they came to Highever.

She blinks, startled by the realization that hits her and blurts out, “It feels like I’m really married.”

It is Anora who ducks her head now, the artfully arranged loose curls framing her face exactly as enchantingly as they were intended to. Her hands compulsively smooth out her dress. “You’ve been married for months.”

“Yes, but…” She looks down at her hands, then at Anora again.

There must be bravery found in the madness of this day, for before she can remember why she shouldn’t, Elissa slips from her barrel and steps in front of Anora. Her eyes leave Anora’s to find her lips. They are slightly parted. “I kissed you once and never again.”

Anora’s pretty, kissable lips twist to give a huff. “For such a remarkable woman you are remarkably dense, Ser Cousland.”

Elissa has barely a moment to realize what is happening, just enough time for her eyes to widen and her mouth to open in a startled gasp. Then there is Anora’s perfectly manicured, slender hand grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and hauling her close with remarkable strength. Then there are their lips meeting, clashing, and Anora’s tongue is claiming her mouth with exactly the same determination which had preserved Anora the throne.

All Elissa can manage is an undignified, “mmpf!” before thoughts of speaking are forgotten altogether in the heat of the second kiss they have shared and the first one that feels real.

Everything about Anora feels so very real, her kiss and her hands in Elissa’s hair and the way her little gasps send shivers down Elissa’s spine. When Anora’s hands slide lower, she feels a moment of regret over wearing plate armor today. Her own hands settle low on Anora’s hips and slide lower to cup the ass that has been featuring in her fantasies for months. Anora spreads her legs and Elissa steps closer, stepping between them to get as close as she can, even clumsy and oafish as she feels in her heavy armor.

Anora breaks the kiss first. Eyelids demurely lowered, she licks her lips. Her nails are sensibly short but still sharp like claws as they dig into the back of Elissa’s unprotected neck. “Maybe you’re not quite as dense as I thought,” she murmurs. “You can be trained, at the very least.”

She ought to be offended. Elissa is almost certain she ought to be offended, yet all that escapes her is a startled laugh, and she is twice as startled to find herself genuinely amused. “Like your mabari?” she goads, wearing her widest, most infuriating grin.

Anora’s glare is withering, just as she had known it would be. Her nails dig in harder. Maker, but how good it would feel to have these claws running down her back. How good it _will_ feel if she plays her cards right. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Cousland. You still have a way to go until I hold you in as high esteem as a mabari.”

Elissa thinks for a moment and decides that as a Fereldan, she finds this a perfectly acceptable assessment.

“You’ve got a way to go before you catch up to Dog, too,” she shoots back, still wearing the same infuriating grin.

“Dog,” Anora scoffs, “I still can’t believe you…”

Before she can complain once more about Elissa’s lacking dog naming skills, Elissa silences her with another kiss.

This time, the noises Anora make go down her spine and settle low in her belly, then between her legs. She shifts and Anora shifts against her, not that she can feel much of it. The plate armor has got to be one of her worst decisions, ever.

Anora’s third kiss is softer, it lingers against her lips, ending on a wistful sigh. “Would it be terrible of me to take you to bed on a day like this one?” she murmurs against Elissa’s lips.

Elissa’s breath catches in her throat. “I don’t know,” she confesses, just as quietly. “But I know I’d much rather be with you than with them.”

Nothing about it feels wrong anymore when they are in Anora’s guest quarters and her queen, her wife makes Elissa feel more alive than she has since she ran from Highever one terrible night two years ago.

The next time they sit in council, Anora is cool and poised once more, and utterly unashamed of the pink mark on her neck. Elissa, for her part, is glad for her armor concealing much. She may have the courage to face an archdemon but the knowing titters of the court are an altogether different beast.

“Warden blue suited you,” Anora says once the meeting is adjoined and they are gathering their scrolls. Her eyes meet Elissa’s. Their blue has turned warm. “But the crown suits you better.”

Elissa’s heart skips a beat, flourishing with wild, reckless hope and no desire at all to dampen it. “I’m glad I’m here, too, Anora.”

The End


End file.
